Cruyff Foundation Junior Masters to start

The players and coaches in Tarbes, France for the 2013 Cruyff Foundation Junior Masters

The 2013 Cruyff Foundation junior Masters gets underway on Thursday, in Tarbes, France, with 12 players – eight boys and four girls – set to contest the premier international junior wheelchair tennis event on 24-27 January.

The Cruyff Foundation Junior Masters once again take place alongside the last four days of the Les Petits As tournament for junior able-bodied players.

Defending champions Alfie Hewett of Great Britain and Angelica Bernal of Colombia return to Tarbes to try and retain the titles they won in 2012, with Bernal bidding for her third successive Cruyff Foundation Junior Masters girls’ singles title.

With the eight players in the boys’ singles divided into two groups of four for the round-robin phase of the competition, each player will contest two of their three round-robin Group matches on Thursday.

In Group 1 world No. 1 ranked junior Hewett opens his title defence against Thato Tsomole of South Africa and Martin de la Puente of Spain. Carlos Anker of the Netherland will also play Tsomole and de la Puente on the opening day of play.

In Group 2 world No. 2 ranked junior Gift Lenkhanye of South Africa will play Hussein Hamid Hel of Iraq and Chris Herman of USA. Nico Langmann of Austria will also play Hel and Herman on Thursday.

The last four round-robin matches will be played on Friday, with the boys’ singles semifinals on Saturday.

In the field of four players for the giris’ singles Polina Shakirova of Russia replaces Lauren Jones of Great Britain, who has had to withdraw. Two girls’ singles round-robin matches will be played on each of the first three days of competition. Thursday’s first day of play sees Bernal face Shakirova, while Diede de Groot of the Netherlands takes on Mariska Venter of South Africa.

Boys’ doubles and girls’ doubles events will also be contested later in the week.